Ginger-Garlic Paste – Perfect for Indian Cooking!

If you’re like me and you cook a ton of Indian food (or even if you’re looking to get into it!), you probably find yourself going through ginger and garlic at a prodigious rate. Fact is, a healthy dollop of each is all but essential at the start of almost every North Indian dish out there, and mincing or grinding them fresh every time can be. . . let’s be polite and call it “trying.”

Luckily, ginger and garlic lend themselves to long-term storage in the form of ginger-garlic paste, and it’s an absolute breeze to make for yourself, so long as you’ve got a few basic ingredients and tools! For the visual learners in the audience, check out this album!

Tangy, bold, and pungent, this blend of ginger and garlic (with a little oil and salt) can camp out in the fridge for a couple of weeks without issue and can be spooned into Indian, Chinese, or Thai dishes as needed.

Tangy, bold, and pungent, this blend of ginger and garlic (with a little oil and salt) can camp out in the fridge for a couple of weeks without issue and can be spooned into Indian, Chinese, or Thai dishes as needed.

Combine a roughly equal amount of peeled, smashed garlic and peeled, roughly chopped ginger in the work bowl of a small food processor or very powerful blender (a wet-dry grinder works great, too, if you have one!).

Pour in the salt and enough oil to get the mixture moving and start to process/blend it, stopping to scraping down the sides every 30-60 seconds, until you achieve a smooth, yellowish paste.

Store in an airtight container (actually airtight; this stuff is pretty fragrant!) for up to 3 weeks in the fridge, or use an ice cube tray to freeze 1.5 tablespoon-sized portions, then store in a Ziplock bag in the freezer up to six months. You. . . might not want to use that tray for regular water ice afterward, though.